What Can I Expect During the Distribution Phase of My Financial Life?

All the hard work from your saving and investing should ideally pay off in the third of your three financial stages of life. If you’ve successfully laid out a plan in advance, this third phase should be one in which you enjoy retirement and are able to put together a plan for where your assets will go after you pass away.

The conclusion phase of your financial life is known as distribution. This is a significant shift from the accumulation and preservation forms of your financial stages because you will have different goals to be accomplished here. Accumulating and protecting assets to build your own personal financial security can be accomplished with various different strategies.

But distribution is something to consider carefully as you move into the retirement phase, in which your income will largely consist of the distributions that you remove from the investment vehicles you have chosen during your accumulation and preservation stage.

You might also need to schedule another consultation with your experienced estate planning lawyer about any estate planning implications that you might be facing due to the accumulation of your wealth. You might need to update estate planning documents such as your will and power of attorney if your life has changed, such as you’ve gone through a divorce or added the birth of new grandchildren. In conjunction, you should update the beneficiary designation forms that you use to articulate who is to receive access to your assets after you pass away.

During the distribution phase, your goal should be to ensure that there are appropriate funds available to pay taxes and final expenses, while also dealing with unforeseen circumstances and ideally enable you to live the retirement lifestyle you have worked so hard for.